The Nature of The Hunt
We've Wandered into the Shadows A massive man, broad as he is tall, has been walking down the road he was on longer than he could remember anymore...not that he usually bothered with remembering much anyways. Ahead he could see a sign , or what was left of a sign, that said Lexio Town was ahead, but nothing else remained on the sign. "Hey, Zo, what do you know about Lexio Town?" the man asked the young woman following behind him. "Besides the fact that it is one of the worst places to go in all of Fiore? Not much, Sterk." she replied, sounding a little bored and worried at the same time. The man ahead of her, Sterk, just smiled like a child learning of a new game. "Sounds promising." As they continued towards Lexio Town, the scenery around them continued to deteriorate until they were on the outskirts of the dark, messy and overall disgusting town. Just looking at the place made Bijou feel like she needed a shower. "Are we really going in there?" "Yes. Don't you sense that magic? Someone powerful is in there." Sterk answered as he continued into the evil town. They wandered pretty aimlessly inside the town, or at least to an outsider it seemed aimless, Sterk was completely focused on hunting down and finding the source of the magic he felt on the outskirts. Left, right, down this alley and past that alley, they continued on for several minutes. The closer they got to it, the faster Sterk's pace got until they were all but running towards the magic source. Finally they stopped, outside of a worn out warehouse. The magic source was definitally coming from in there. "Wait, just a moment." Bijou said to the large man as he reached for the massive warehouse doors. "Activate Nature of Genius." A glowing eye appeared on Bijou's forehead. Her magic didn't increase noticeably, but Sterk already knew that the kind of power that she just granted herself couldn't be measured by magical output. She knodded briefly to him and he forced open the doors. Inside the warehouse were three figures standing in the middle of the warehouse, two of them were obviously there and the third seemed to be a hologram from a Communication Lacrima. "Is the package ready to be transfered?" The Hologram said as the seller nodded in agreement, pulling the item from underneath his cloak. The other person next to him went forward, studying the item before presenting him with an entire bag of jewels, but just then the warehouse completely froze. After several tense moments there was a curse from the salesman who wanted to run, but was immediately stopped by the other figure, who was clearly wearing some sort of large blade. "It would seem that we have ourselves a few rats in our midst, how disappointing, Tenjin, please show our guests the way to their gods please" The hologram said. A fourth figure appeared in front of Bijou and Sterk, the glint of multiple blades in both of his hands, and intense magical power washed over them. Sterk's grin widened as he was hoping for a fight, however Bijou stopped him. "We can't take them, not here." she said, almost screaming and panicking, her voice cracking a bit. "We need to run." Sterk sighed in agitation but knew better than to argue with Bijou about something like this. "Make sure they do not survive to tell about it..." They turned on their heels and fled with the sound of pursuit close behind them. The Collector simply looked on as he turned towards his Hunter Division Leader, Suekko Chitose, "If Tenji should somehow fail, I want you to coordinate with him, they must not discover who we are." The hologram said as he disappeared back into the Lacrima. The Academy of Misfits It was another morning in the Ito Academy, many of the students were on vacation for the school holiday, and the only people in the academy were the security teams and the residence there. In her office, the Head-Mistress Tsunade Mai, was looking over the paperwork from the board of educators to determine the new menus for the lunches. There was a knocking at her office door. "Mom, can we come in?" A voice said as she smiled, putting down the paperwork, and looking up at the door. "Yes dear, it's open..." A man with wild hair and eyes came walking him, accompied by a dark-skinned woman who was showing signs of pregnancy as her stomach was round and large. They entered as Tsuande walked over to the couple, lowered herself to the woman's enlarged stomach, and placed her head on it only to recieve a kick from the baby inside. "I must say Sakura , this young one has much energy, probably got that from his father." She looked over to her son as he chuckled a bit while blushing. "Well Trent , I have to say seeing you blush is cute" His wife said as they all started to laugh. "Head-Mistress, this is Chief Zon, you have a visitor" Tsunade went to the com-link, "I'll be right there. Sorry, duty calls, bye-bye little one." Tsunade rubbed Sakura's stomach as she walked out of her office. The Chase Tenji was jumping from rooftop to rooftop in persue of Sterk and Bijou as the duo kept ducking into different parts of the town, unknowingly making their way to the train station. He began to use his Requip, summoning small blades to his hands as he started throwing at the duo every chance he got. The duo found themselves running down an alley way that lead them to the train-station, with Tenjin right behind them as they made it inside without any trouble, causing Tenjin to growl as he kept to the shadows, not wanting anyone to see him. The Lacirma in his pocket shook as he set it down to the ground, and the same hologram appeared in front of him. "I trust they are dead..." The silence said it all as The Collector growled under his breath. "Forgive me Master, I could not risk exposing myself in the open, especially due to my status at the moment." Tenjin said kneeling before his boss. "It is alright, anonymity is our greatest weapon and it must always be protected. Though I am sure you took extra means to make sure they would not slip that easily through you." Tenjin stood up smiling as he held a piece of paper with a magic circle on it, while unknown to the Duo boarding the train to the Ito Academy, there was an identical piece of paper with the same magic circle in their pockets. Main Lobby, Ito Academy When Tsunade got to the main entrance area of the school she saw a woman in a military uniform, but Tsunade knew that this woman had no ties to any country's military. "You didn't tell me you were planning to visit, Maria!" Tsunade said a little annoyed at the unexpected visit but still happy. "You almost sound upset to be seeing a former student." Maria replied, pouting a bit. She then smiled, showing that she was teasing. Tsunade just laughed at the alumni. "So what have you been up to?" the Head-mistress asked. "I've just been traveling here and there. I just recently got back from Seven." Maria replied. Tsunade then caught sight of the hilt of a sword on Maria's hip. "So, you've become a swordsman since you graduated?" Tsunade asked, though it sounded more like a statement than a question. Maria knodded, but didn't volunteer any information about her sword. Before Tsunade could try and get anymore information there was a commotion at the front gates and they both went to investigate. At the Gates "Sir! You can't just barge in here!" one of the security men yelled. "Out of my way." a massively built man muttered. "You're not the source." This is the scene that Tsunade and Maria saw when they arrived. While the massive man and one of the numerous security guards argued, there was a young woman desperately trying to apologize and confince the rest of the guards not to attack and to let them in. "Sterk? Bijou? What are you two doing here?" Maria asked. "You know these two?" Tsunade asked. Maria nodded. "Met them during my travels. They're usually harmless." Maria answered. "Usually?" Tsunaded repeated. "Maria!" Bijou exclaimed, waving to the two women. "We thought we sensed you around here." "There's another powerful magic source in here." Sterk muttered, as if he hadn't noticed the arrival of Maria and Tsunade. "Last time you said that we walked in on something that almost got us killed." Bijou sighed. Sterk grunted in dismissal. "Would it be alright to let them in?" Maria asked. "Depends. What did you mean by 'usually harmless'?" Tsunade asked. "Bijou won't start anything, but Sterk's goal seems to be finding people to fight." Maria answered with a sigh. "He wanders around and hunts down strong sources of magical power." "Well, I suppose that's flattering if he's shown up here." Tsunade said. "That means there may be a very promising student." In the shadows above the front gates, Tenjin looked down to see all of them grouped together, swearing under his breath as he brought back out the Lacirma from his pocket. The Collector appeared, noticing where Tenjin was transmitting from. "It would seem things have taken a turn for the worse I'm afraid, if Sterk's file is as thorough as Suekko claims, he will no doubt locate the item locked away there." He took in a deep breath, not letting his emotions get the better of him as he turned to Tenjin. "Report to the safe-house far from the academy, Suekko is one of the members in the Board of Educators, he will arrive to help assist in killing them. Once the Head-Mistress is taken out, we will seize every student there for our purposes, understood?" "Yes, Lord Collector." Tenjin said as The Collector disappeared, leaving Tenjin by himself as he disappeared into the Shadows. Main Office "So, explain to me what you believe you sense here, Sterk" Tsunade asked as she looked at the group in front of her. After hearing about this supposed power in her academy, she knew that something was going on under her nose, and had to get to the bottom of it. Scheming Shadows Tenjin arrived at the safe-house that The Collector had directed him to and slipped in quietly, without any of the posted members of the Organization realizing that he had arrived. He then went straight into the main office of the safe-house, where the Division Leaders go. Tenjin didn't wait long before the Hunter Division Leader arrived. "Ah, good, you're already here, Endless Blade." the Chitose man said. "So, the targets have taken refuge at Ito." "That's right." the Priest replied. "A quick briefing on the targets is in order then." the Hunter Leader said, pulling some papers out of a bag. "Let's see...Sterk Fenrisúlfur, 39, uses Sacred Spirit Magic, Seirei-Class...all he does is wander looking for fights. Bijou de la Zoé, 18, uses the same magic, same class, she just follows the oaf around." Tenjin nodded, indicating that he understood and remembered the information. "So, our dear Collector wants me to use my authority, as a member of the Board, to deal with them." Suekko said with a bit of a sigh. He was still a little irritated about the botched transaction that the targets had caused. "You are to take out the Head-Mistress, then we finish off the targets and collect all the students afterwards." Tenjin said, a slight growl in his tone as he took Suekko's irritated sigh as something against The Collector. "Really? Tch, too bad, she was a wonderful Head-Mistress." Suekko said, ignoring Tenjin's growling. "Oh well, I suppose she's now outlived her usefulness. Anything else?" "There was another woman there." Tenjin answered, pulling out the lacrima and showing the recorded image of another woman standing next to the Head-Mistress. "Her..." Suekkos said, staring at the image for a bit, then shuffled through his bag and pulled out some more paper work. "Maria Shields, aka The Woman who Wields the Sword of 1,000 Elements, 25, member of the 10 Unmei no Ken, wields the sword Shiroizugaikotsu. Graduate of Ito, uses multiple elemental magics, Master Swordsman and has recently returned to Fiore from Seven. She had a run in with a guild there that resulted in the destruction of the guild building...she'll be troublesome, but killing her won't be a wasted effort." Tenjin nodded again and then made a gesture that ment Suekko needed to get to Ito Academy and to end the briefing. Another sigh and Suekko then adjusted his sword, sighed once more and then headed out. Tenjin heard Suekko mutter something about the Head-Mistress' kids and how bothersome a job that didn't guarentee a payout was. Next Chapter: Infiltration: Unknown Questions Category:Leengard Ustan Category:Phantombeast Category:Shadow Broker Organization